News by Subject Chemistry & Physics

ORNL Story Tips: Pandemic impact, root studies, neutrons confirm, lab on a crystal and modeling fusion.

Researchers have demonstrated the use of tinted, semi-transparent solar panels to generate electricity and produce nutritionally-superior crops simultaneously, bringing the prospect of higher incomes for farmers and maximising use of agricultural land.

An efficient in situ pathway to generate and attach oxygen functional groups to graphitic electrodes for supercapacitors by inducing hydrolysis of water molecules within the gel electrolyte.

Using precise measurements from state-of-the-art satellite-based radar that can detect the land surface rise and fall with millimeter accuracy, an ASU research team has, for the first time, tracked the entire California coast's vertical land motion. They've identified local hotspots of the sinking coast, in the cities of San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and San Francisco, who will be at a higher flooding risk during the decades ahead of projected sea-level rise.

A new PNNL report says the western US bulk power system can reliably support projected growth of up to 24 million electric vehicles through 2028, but challenges will arise as EV adoption grows beyond that threshold. The study is the most comprehensive of its kind, integrating multiple variables not evaluated before, such as growth in commercial delivery fleets and long-haul trucks, as well as large-scale and long-term EV charging scenarios and strategies.

Nanoengineers at UC San Diego developed a new method to fabricate perovskites as single-crystal thin films, which are more efficient for use in solar cells and optical devices than the current state-of-the-art polycrystalline forms of the material. Their fabrication method--which uses standard semiconductor fabrication processes--results in flexible single-crystal perovskite films with controlled area, thickness, and composition.